Prelude

Christian Wiman

Church or sermon, prayer or poem:
the failure of religious feeling is a form.

                             *

The failure of religious feeling is a form
of love that, though it could not survive

the cataclysmic joy of its inception,
nevertheless preserves its own sane something,

space in which the grievers gather,
inviolate ice that the believers weather:

church or sermon, prayer or poem.

                             *

Finer and finer the meaningless distinctions:
theodicies, idiolects, books, books, books.

I need a space for unbelief to breathe.
I need a form for failure, since it is what I have.